


Astriferous

by postcardsfromrussia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Historical, Self Harm, Stars, self injury, twenty things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 08:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2303972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardsfromrussia/pseuds/postcardsfromrussia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merope Gaunt has never been celestial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Astriferous

i.

People are made from stardust and water. Our bones are formed from galaxies, our hearts from planets. But we still bury our fingers into the earth, because some of us never were meant to be celestial.

Merope can’t breathe. She’s buried herself beneath the earth, she thinks, so plain and dim that there’s nothing heavenly in her. If people are made of stars, then she is not human.

Then, she thinks, what is her son?

Merope digs her fingers into the ground. She’s not sure what she’s looking for. She can feel the soil under her fingernails, wet and earthy and dirty, until she lands home on the cold metal that she didn’t know she’d meant to find. She finds the chain, pulls, and sees Slytherin’s locket dangling from between her fingers.

She doesn’t remember burying it. She doesn’t remember a lot, of late.

ii.

It is time to stop giving Tom the potion. He loves her now, certainly, she thinks. There is something that has changed between them lately, she thinks. She is pregnant; he is a good man; he will not leave her.

He slams into the back door. He might be drunk, might not be. She doesn't know anymore. "Tom," she says (it's one of the few words she has). 

His voice is flat; his face is blank. "Get out of my house."

Before she knows it - and she couldn't even tell you if she did or he - she is pressed up against him, her sallow skin against his still-handsome face. "Stay, Tom. Please stay."

"I don't know who you are," he says. The words sting.

"I have your child," she says. An accusation.

"No," he says, and shakes his head. "That child is not mine."

She wants to scream, to curse him, to make him hurt the way that he has hurt her. But he is ever-beautiful and she cannot bear to see him like this.

Merope has never been good at holding onto things which is what comes when all you’ve ever been told is that you can’t do anything but, she thought, she would be good at holding onto Tom. She guesses it is possible to be too small to carry something.

She stirs until there is another dose of potion left. But he's gone; he's been long gone. Like stardust, he too is fleeting.

iii.

It sold for three Galleons. She’d thought it was worth more, but then again, she’d thought that she was worth more. Borgin didn’t think much of anything. He’d seen how desperate Merope is, seen her lack of hope for life.

"Ten," she says.

He shakes his head. "Not even worth that."

Three Galleons will buy: a secondhand book, three newt eyes, two glasses of butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron. She makes the trade.

Heavily pregnant, she lies on her side, her ear pressed to the earth. She hears the heartbeat of the world.

Her son, she thinks, will be the world.

iv.

The first time Merope unzips her veins she is standing in front of a fire that she did not light. It’s cold outside and she does not remember striking a match but she does remember eating snow and ice in the hopes that it would fill her. The cold made her feel something. Made her feel real. She hasn’t felt real in a long time.

It hurts, but hurt is something. Lately, she does not feel anything except for the thrumming pulse of her son. This is a rise in her throat, a shot of adrenaline that enters her veins and leaves through the tips of her fingers.

She watches red fall onto the snow, entranced by the contrast of red on white. Suddenly, instead of enhancing her reality, this makes her feel surreal, as if she is watching from someone else’s perspective. She is not the one undoing herself.

Near the end, she remembers her son.

She does not try again.

 

v.

There are some things Merope doesn’t understand like why people fall in love with those who will never love them back and why she refuses to let herself use magic but she does know that her son will not love the world and that he will be more like her than anyone. He'll be searching at the edges to continue a life that he has no desire to live. 

She does not know if she will ever know her son. She wants to shake him hard by the shoulders before his life can even begin. Please live, please love, please. She does not know how to finish.

Under the snow (celestial) there is still dirt (earthly), but you can't see it, and that's what's most important to Merope. She digs a spot in the snow for herself, lies buried in it. It's cold and it numbs her out, but it comes from the sky, and maybe if she embraces it enough then she will finally know something besides plain and dim and sadness. She lies there so long that it is not cold anymore, until she begins to be very tired. Until a Muggle digs her out, yelling, 'Hey lady, what the fuck are you doing?' and Merope does not know what is real and what isn't anymore.

vi.

When Merope was younger her father would disappear for days on end. To this day Merope does not know where he went or what he was doing, but she does remember her futile attempts to do something right. She remembers practicing spells, charms, jinxes even, to keep herself safe from her father, but she would never fully succeed. And her father would always return expecting some transformation on Merope's part to a successful witch. She never was. And she always took the punishment for it. 

Tom was the light in Merope's life. Pathetic, now, once you think about it. A man she never knew is what kept her alive. She shouldn't have stayed alive in the first place, she thinks. Not worth that much. Not like anyone ever told her that she was. Tom was blank, empty, and ashen, but he was hers, and Merope did not have enough of that in her life. There was very little that was her own. All she ever wanted was to claim.

Merope changes her mind. Her son is not going to be like her. Her son is going to be exactly like his father.

vii.

Merope is weak. She is very weak. She could not tell you the last time she has eaten, and the scars pulsing on her body are threatening to reopen and make her suffer further. She is also about to give birth.

She's scouted the village before, looking for an orphanage - she does not want this child. Not anymore. She does not want herself, once you think about it. There is something wrong with it, and she cannot bear its weight in her body. She can't feel anything, anyway, except for the child kicking and telling her that he is going to be different than she was. That he is not going to bury his fingers into the earth like she did - he is going to take everything. Something has changed in him - a heartbeat, a change in colour. A shuddering.

It's time, she thinks.

viii.

"Tom," she says. Like his father - he will be callous, uncaring, and she will not be able to stay away from him. No one will. Merope is weak, after all. If she is made of stars, she is the dimmest, and Tom will be the brightest. The one that everyone will want to follow.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," she says to finish it. Like him, the name is a curse.

The emptiness in Merope's vision fills her entire world. The last thing she sees is stars.


End file.
